Prerequisites for the Emergence of Cossack Historical Culture and Its Role in the Formation of Ukrainian National Identity

Abstract

The presented study conceptualizes the genesis of Ukrainian statehood through the prism of the Cossack era of the 17th–18th centuries as a matrix of national identity. The objective of the research is to analyze Cossack historical culture as a factor that determined the community's evolution from a military estate to the key constructor of the modern nation. The methodological framework is based on the principles of intellectual decolonization, the "Great Frontier" theory, and the concept of historical culture, which allows for examining social memory as a system of mental operations for orientation in contemporary space.

As a result of the analysis, it is established that the combination of steppe frontier factors and the khutir-zymivnyk (homestead and winter quarters) farming system formed a unique socio-cultural type of a free owner. The author argues that the orientation towards private property and economic autonomy laid the mental foundations of Ukrainian individualism, which became an antithesis to imperial models. The political and legal culture of the Zaporozhian Host, based on the principles of institutional democracy, electivity, and contractual relations, acted as a civilizational barrier against authoritarianism.

Special attention is paid to the evolution of the Cossacks in the context of the European Baroque. It is proven that the religious factor and the activities of the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy contributed to the formation of the "Baroque man" type—a warrior-philosopher who legitimized power through the idea of historical continuity from Kyivan Rus'. The aesthetic codification of these processes occurred through the art of the "Cossack Baroque" and the chronicle tradition (S. Velychko, H. Hrabyanka), where the Khmelnytsky era was affirmed as the central event of nation-building.

The conclusions state that Cossack historical culture acted as a mediator between the elite and the populace, transforming estate privileges into a nationwide identification code. This complex became the main safeguard against the assimilation of Ukrainians, ensuring continuity from the early modern period to the contemporary political nation. The Cossack heritage remains a value-based reference point that determines the democratic and European vector of modern Ukraine's development.